It’s been a long, hard slog for the Monacan Indian Nation and the Chickahominy, Eastern Chickahominy, Upper Mattaponi, Rappahannock and Nansemond tribes during the past decades in their quest to gain federal recognition.

Vincent Brewer Sr. accomplished so much in his life. As a young man he served valiantly in the U.S. Navy, he played for a team that managed to pull out a victory over the Harlem Globe Trotters, and he would go on to be a longtime Chief Judge for the Oglala Sioux Tribe.

The horrors of President Jackson’s Removal and the widespread and sometimes violent resistance to allotment of our reservations that created Oklahoma were threats to our immediate ancestors we learned about at home or did not learn.